Last Wednesday came your Books, all safe; no Parcel of Montague's; and what we grudged very much no scratch of a pen from
yourself. The last two Letters also hurried, and half-full; communicating little, except perhaps that you were in bodily health,
and felt yourself bound to write to us. Does your fraternal conscience say nothing on this point? For me I think it wrong
and unfriendly in several respects. You are there in the focus of British activity at a great era in the world's history,
at a great era in your own; I am here in the dead silence of peat-moss, yet warmly interested in all that pertains to both these eras; and you take the trouble to tell me very
little. Some half hundred things you might throw great light on for me; indeed scarcely anything you could write would not
instruct me: nevertheless you will not so much as fill your paper, no matter with what. Depend upon it, dear Jack, all this
is not right. But what remedy have we? A man's Letters are his Letters; you must accept them as such, or cease to correspond
with him, and then you get justice! Therefore I will say no more on this point. But one thing more especially grieves me, my dear Brother: that
in these hasty scrawls of Letters, I trace some perturbation of mind diligently hidden from me. O this, be sure, is not right. Speak of your cares, man, to a heart that loves you: they will grow lighter by your very speaking of them; Order arises
out of speech especially out of writing. Attempt to explain what you do know, and you already know something more. But with
this too I have done. As was said, your Letters are your Letters; and I, or any man, have no right to complain of them, but
only to take thankfully what you give.

I have been busy for three weeks, have finished Taylor, and send it off tomorrow: it cannot appear till the Number following the first. Taylor is a clever old Philister, and I have salted him according to ability; there is also something about Welt-Litteratur [world literature]:1 on the whole, a baddish Article, not without some particles of worth, and may help a little to guide our German studies from some aberration. In
writing to Napier, I mentioned the possibility of his receiving a Paper from you: he was to try it, and accept or reject quite freely, according to his judgement. I hope and trust, it will do. There is no Periodical so steady as the Edinburgh Review;
the salary fair, the vehicle respectable. Whether Diet may be a quite popular subject I do not know; but I calculate with some confidence that you will make a reasonable story out of it. Are you apprised that
some three years ago, there was an Article on that subject; the poorest of Articles; which Jeffrey too interwove with a constant running thread of contradiction,
almost every alternate paragraph was his, and the whole looked laughable enough. I fancy these artists will hardly have trenched
on your ground: nevertheless look at their work. I cannot direct you to the Number more nearly than so: that it was the one
published immediately before our leaving Edinr,2 perhaps therefore, that of March or April 1828. You should try to be new, and above all to give new facts. Are there any Dietetic habits peculiar on the Continent; any public Regulations or approaches to such anywhere: some notices
of these or the like would be very interesting. I have surely heard that some Governments do take a certain charge of the
People's health, as all should. Public Lectures on Regimen would be next to Public Lectures on Morality. Will you touch on
this? Can you tell us accurately how Boxers and the like are dieted in England? If so explain it satisfactorily; for it will
be new to many. Will any of your Germans tell you how the old Athletes were trained? Can you state any curious particulars
about the various diets of nations generally? Say thus much at least: Man can live on all things, from whale-blubber (as in
Greenland) to clay-earth (as at the mouth of the Orinoco, see Humboldt).3 Then you have all the Passions &c influenced by eating; madness itself lying in the stomach: one can go mad at any time one
likes, by laying a cupfull of alcohol to the walls of that organ. Excuse these shoulderings at the wheel: I have no force
to help you, but if I had—! On the whole, dear Jack, do your best; and exceed not twenty pages; shorter if you can; brevity for this time will be a great recommendation to you. Looking at what you have done, I should
say there was no fear: but ill-luck has so pursued one in these matters, one knows not what to think. Nay when you have done your best, stand resolutely up, and say to yourself, I have done it, ich kann nicht anders [I cannot do otherwise].4

But by this time dear Brother I suppose you are getting wiser as to the true charms of a Life of Literature, and looking with
some earnestness for a deliverance into your profession. God send it! But in the meanwhile, Patience! Perseverance! unwearied Diligence! Man has not and cannot have other armour, stand where he may.
[I] read your Demonology and a Paper on St J. Long, the only thing by you in that [al]most quite despicable Magazine.5 Will you tell me Jack how you have lived, or where you get money, my poor Boy? In this Magazine I see scarcely £15 worth.
Above all, how did you get me £30, when for all they have yet printed, I could scarcely claim the half of that? Explain, Explain dear Brother, that I may
see where both of us are standing.— Certainly that Fraser's Magazine gives the most scurvy remuneration of any Periodical extant, and shall have no more stuff of mine at that rate, barring worse
fortune than I have yet seen. Solid well-thought writing such as yours for example will not yield a man existence. “Come out
of her my Brethren, come out of her!”6 It is also a frothy, washy, punchy [flabby], dirty kind of Periodical, I fear: “Come out of her”—and altogether out of that craft, thou that canst.

But I have a serious commission for you (trouble, as usual) grounded on these facts. Will you go to Fraser and get from him
by all means my long Paper entitled Thoughts on Clothes:7 I would not for above half a dozen reasons have it appear there so long as I have potatoes to eat. Get it from him, unless
it is absolutely printed: the rest he can keep, they will surely pay him: but of this (in addition to the above reasons) I
have taken a notion that I can make rather a good Book of it, and one above all likely to produce some desirable impression on the world even now. Do thou get it, my dear Jack,
read it well over thyself, and then say what thou thinkest. I can devise some more Biography for Teufelsdreck; give a second
deeper part, in the same vein, leading thro' Religion and the nature of Society, and Lord knows what. Nay that very ‘Thoughts,’
slightly altered wd itself make a little volume first (which would encourage me immensely) could one find any Bookseller, which however I suppose
one cannot. Whether it were worth while to show Fraser the Manuscript (for I think he has not read it) and take counsel with
him; or still rather to show Edward Irving it (whose friendliness and feeling of the True, widely as it differs from him,
I know) do thou judge. I fear perfect anonymity is now out of the question; however swear every one to secrecy, for I mean to speak fearlessly if at all. Basta! Basta! [Enough! Enough!]—I have taken up the whole blessed sheet, and not one word of news. We are well; Alick and his spouse do
bravely, he seems fully happier than his wont. They two were at Scotsbrig last week, and brought up favourable reports of
all—except our Father who had heedlessly caught cold, and was ‘no better hardly’ last wednesday, when Jean wrote us. They
had got your letter but did not send it. They are in great spirit for reading Newspapers, and joy over the Examiner. M'Diarmid
is the Dud of Duds. They can ‘meet him,’ impudently8 yet with a struggle: what is to come [to] Alick whether to flit or not is still in the womb of Time; who brings Roses,9 and also Thistles. Let us us [sic] be thankful and submissive & love one another

T. Carlyle

Can you tell me anything about who the Conductors of the Examiner are?10 The head one is a fine figurative fellow, devoid of belief, yet not incapable (if under 45) of receiving such. They spoke
lately of the St Simonians (whom I love and pity and dissent from):11 I had positive thoughts of sending up my Ms. Translation to him (the ‘Conductor’), and requesting him to find a Publisher for it. I clearly think it might do good, especially in these days.
I expected no profit. Tell me what you think. I suppose you know no Bookseller (I meant it as a Pamphlet, which it is in the original, not an ‘Article’). Had I any money, I would have a look at London soon, and
see what I could see. Wait till my Book is done, then will I come up with it!

Can you tell me what is becoming of Charlie Buller? He voted for Wellington (filling us with weender!12): what is he meaning now. Say, when you see him, that I have still a fatherly remembrance of Arthur and him, and hope much of them.— Is not Maginn13 a good-natured good-for-little? He has fun, no humour; and talks horribly of drink[.]

The Lord Advocate sends us his first frank: they tore his garments at Forfar, and ‘rubbed’ him, that is, hustled. The scandalous
dogs: the worthiest public man in all broad Scotland.—14 O Jack! Jack! be steady, be manful: the Devil is busy, but he is not omnipotent—

Cruthers and Johnson is a dud, a palpable dud; but too good for the place it stands in.15 Thank Fraser for his Spectator, I do like him— I have not paid your Dumfries Tailor, but will take charge of it: by rigorous care we may hold out till Macvey come, and then— I meanwhile writing at my BOOK!

Can you get me a Schiller's Life (for 2/6) from my Bookseller, Taylor of Gower-street? I rather want one.

William Graham is not at Burnswark; we hear it surmised that his affairs are again wrong or going wrong: poor, worthy man!

1. Carlyle does refer in his review to “free literary intercourse with other nations” (Works, XXVII, 337) and closes the essay with the hope “that a new era in the spiritual intercourse of Europe is approaching; that
instead of isolated, mutually repulsive National Literatures, a World Literature may one day be looked for” (ibid., p. 369). He writes with some of Goethe's remarks in mind which he wrote in his letters to Carlyle and in the introduction
to the German translation of Carlyle's Schiller. See Norton, GC, pp. 23–26, and 301; and cf. Tennyson, Sartor, pp. 96–97, and René Wellek, A History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950 (New Haven and London, 1965), III, 98 ff. Carlyle had been first introduced to Goethe's term “world literature” three years before when John had quoted
to him a passage on the subject from one of Goethe's letters to Sulpiz Boisserée. See John Clubbe, “John Carlyle in Germany
and the Genesis of Sartor Resartus,” in Romantic and Victorian: Studies in Memory of William H. Marshall (Rutherford, N.J., 1971), p. 272. For full discussion, see Fritz Strich, Goethe and World Literature (New York, 1949).

2. They left 26 May 1828. The article referred to is a review of some books on dietetics, XLVII (Jan. 1828), 37–59.

5. “Some Passages from the Diary of the late Mr. St. John Long,” Fraser's Magazine, II (Jan. 1831), 739–40; and a review-article of Sir Walter Scott's Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, II (Dec. 1830), 507–19.

10. The editor from 1830 to 1847 was Albany Fonblanque (1793–1872), distinguished radical journalist, author of England Under Seven Administrations (London, 1837), regarded by some in his own day as “the greatest journalist in England,” and later characterized by Carlyle as a man who
“seemed to consider that his task in the world was to expose fallacies of all sorts, which, in fact, he did with considerable
adroitness and skill” (Duffy, p. 84).

11. Carlyle read, not Fonblanque on the St. Simonians, but John Stuart Mill, in his series of articles on “The Spirit of the Age,”
the first of which appeared in the Examiner, 6 Jan. 1831; others followed on 23 Jan., 6 Feb., 13 March, 3 April, and 15 and 29 May. (See the reprinted Spirit of the Age, ed. Frederick A. Hayek [Chicago, 1942]). Mill had already paid a visit to France after the July revolution and had written letters for the Examiner about it; and as early as 1828 he had become the friend and correspondent of Gustave d'Eichthal who had introduced him to the writings of Comte and the
St. Simonians. Although Mill does not directly mention the St. Simonian teaching in the first article, Carlyle had at once
detected its influence. The direct consequence was that on coming to London later in the year Carlyle “hunted out the author”
of these papers, so Mill told John Sterling in a letter of 20–22 Oct., adding that “his acquaintance is the only substantial good I have yet derived” from them (Mineka, I, 85, 86). Cf. his later
account in the Autobiography, with preface by J. J. Coss (New York, 1924), p. 122.

12. “Weender and amazement,” according to Carlyle was based on a report of “little Jean's, of some preacher who had profusely
employed that locution, pronounced as here” (A. Carlyle, NLM, I, 37). Cf. JWC and GW to TC, 16 April 1827. Charles Buller did not vote for Wellington. See TC to JAC, 26 Feb., note 2, confirmed by Hansard's lists of the voting on the Civil list, 15 Nov. It would have been surprising if he had since he was a utilitarian and a radical, one of a small group in the House of Commons
which not only demanded reform but wanted more drastic changes.

14. Jeffrey was elected to Parliament on 13 Jan., and the Scotsman of 15 Jan. gave a lively account of the election. Jeffrey was assaulted, and “a cry was raised, ‘There's Jeffrey—murder him—kill him.’”
It was the Provost of Perth, however, whose clothes were torn, though it was Jeffrey who said that he had been “subjected
to a good deal of rubbing.” High feeling arose because of the popularity of the defeated local candidate, Captain Ogilvy.